OPR Home Page

Office of Professional Responsibility

CHARTER
DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY (OPR)

Purpose
The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has three interrelated purposes:

To investigate fraudulent or unethical behavior by District employees, make criminal referrals to all appropriate law enforcement agencies, and to recommend necessary changes to the affected District policy (ies).
To conduct case development activities in conjunction with Internal Audit and other Dallas ISD offices, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies as well as other developed sources of information to identify potential areas of fraud, waste and abuse involving the District.
To train all new and current employees of the District on the District’s Handbook of Employee Ethics and Integrity and to conduct annual ethics based training along with other related training as necessary.

The Office of Professional Responsibility is subdivided into three groups as follows:

Office of Investigations

Develop Departmental policies, practices, and procedures for the investigation and/or referral of alleged fraudulent or unethical activities within any department or components of the District.
Conduct investigations and review investigations carried out by others, to detect and prevent waste, fraud and abuse in the District’s programs and operations.
Manage the District’s Fraud Hotline. Investigate or refer, as appropriate, allegations made via the Fraud Hotline and maintain a computer system tracking all incidents.
Protect individuals who allege misconduct from retaliation to the extent allowed by law. Review the District’s whistleblower’s policy and recommend amendments as necessary.
Recommend remedies in situations where apparent fraudulent or unethical behavior has been found.
Protect the due process rights of individuals that are accused of wrongdoing in accordance with district policy.
Coordinate with appropriate offices and law enforcement agencies when criminal activity is suspected.
Perform Ad Hoc investigations as requested by the Superintendent of Schools.

Office of Compliance

Develop and implement, in conjunction with Internal Audit, a comprehensive fraud program to identify instances of fraud, waste and abuse in the District.
Manage the District’s Fraud Hotline. Investigate or refer, as appropriate, allegations made via the Fraud Hotline.
Develop and maintain a computer system tracking all incidents.
Manage the District’s applicant and annual Criminal Records Check (CRC) program and coordinate actions with the Human Development Department. Coordinate the implementation of the biometric scanning of District employees.
Develop Departmental policies, practices, and procedures for the investigation and/or referral of alleged fraudulent or unethical activities within any department or components of the District.
Identify systemic issues and systemic steps that can be taken to reduce fraudulent or unethical activities.

Office of Ethics and Integrity

Plan, coordinate, deliver, and revise the District training needs in all matters concerning ethics/integrity training to include the annual Certification Statement.
Review and amend annually the district wide Certification Statement signed by each employee on the completion of annual ethics/integrity training.
Review and revise annually the needs of the Department in regards to the statement on Conflicts of Interest, Felony/Misdemeanor arrests and convictions, and knowledge of any ethical/integrity/misconduct issues or incidents known to the employee.
Coordinate with District’s Office of Legal Services and Executive Directors of Compliance and Investigations on specific elements in the annual Certification Statement.
Incorporate Computer Based Training into both new employee orientation and annual ethics/integrity training sessions. Have peer based video scenarios and update annually.
Prepare a monthly newsletter on activities within the Department.
Review and revise the Department’s Website, incorporating informational items and computer based training sessions.
Perform Ad Hoc Ethical Training sessions as requested by the General Superintendent.

Authority of the Executive Director, OPR
The Executive Director is authorized:

To investigate any employee of the District regardless of reporting status, title, or employment status.
To have full, free and unrestricted access to all District records, reports, audits, reviews, plans, projections, documents, files, contracts, memoranda, correspondence, data or information on audio/video/computer tape/disk, or other materials of District relevant to an investigation.
take testimony and compel the production of such books, papers, records and documents as may be deemed relevant to any inquiry or investigation undertaken within the District.
To temporarily assign, with the Superintendent of School's approval, any District staff employee with special skills to assist in any investigation, operational review, or ethics training as necessary to accomplish the mission of this Department.
To share information relating to possible criminal acts with all appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Qualifications of Executive Director, OPR
The Executive Director shall have knowledge and experience in the following areas:

Accounting and auditing
Investigative techniques
Criminal law, civil law, rules of evidence and expert witness matters
Management of a professional staff

Relationship of the Executive Director, OPR to the Superintendent of Schools

The Executive Director shall report directly to the Superintendent of Schools. The Executive Director will apprise the Superintendent of Schools, or his selected designee, on investigations in progress and consult, as necessary, with the General Counsel on all legal matters. The Executive Director shall keep the Superintendent of Schools fully and currently informed concerning reports of fraud and other serious problems, abuses, and deficiencies related to the administration of programs and operations within the District.

Relationship to Other District Management

The Superintendent of Schools fully supports the investigative independence of the Executive Director. The Superintendent of Schools expects the Executive Director and District management to develop and maintain a relationship that is designed to further the District’s common purpose. The Executive Director and District management are expected to meet as necessary, discuss priorities, share information and ideas, and seek agreement where possible so that the Executive Director’s work can contribute most effectively to the District’s objectives.

District management is responsible for reporting any allegations or evidence of misconduct to the Executive Director’s Office and for providing full information to the staff of the Executive Director about matters in which the Executive Director has authority or a legitimate interest. District management is expected to protect employees who contact the Executive Director and/or staff of the Executive Director from reprisal or threat of reprisal, unless the employee knowingly gave false information or gave information with willful disregard for its truth or falsity.